


the first to arrive

by WattStalf



Series: Commissions [36]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Family, Gen, Spoilers for Silver Snow, commission
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-24 23:51:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21346834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WattStalf/pseuds/WattStalf
Summary: Seteth takes up a teaching position some years after the war, and on the first day, meets a girl who bears a striking resemblance to someone he has not seen in some time.
Relationships: Flayn/Linhardt von Hevring, My Unit | Byleth/Seteth
Series: Commissions [36]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1325462
Kudos: 114





	the first to arrive

The girl says her goodbyes to her mother and father and younger siblings, setting off on her journey to the Officer’s Academy at Garreg Mach. Ordinarily, a family like hers, isolated and not exactly a part of high society, would struggle in sending her to a school like that, but her parents have enough pull, and pull that they’ve managed to use discreetly.

Due to their discretion, they’ve made the decision not to accompany her on her trip, but she doesn’t mind that. They’ve always been an unusual family, and all she really cares about is how quickly she can move into her new room so that she can test out her new bed. Though the girl has just barely left home, she’s already exhausted.

~X~

Seteth is happy to be returning to teaching for the first time in quite a while. It’s been more than fifteen years since the war ended, and he has spend that time by his wife’s side, helping her reconstruct and rule the continent, but now, he’s ready to go back to what he has come to love doing, during all his years at the monastery. Byleth is supportive of that, and has even wondered if it’s possible for her to resume her role as a teacher, though it’s hard to tell if she’s serious about that or not.

It’s been a difficult time, and he can say that he’s only adjusted so well because he has had Byleth at his side. But losing Flayn- though “losing” certainly makes it sound worse than it really is- was hard on him, and though he knew she would soon begin living without him, and that he could only afford to fret over her for so long, he still struggles with the absence of his daughter for several years, worrying over where she is and what she’s doing.

Somehow, he knows that she’s still alive, though he has no way of explaining how he knows that. Father’s intuition, maybe, but he is sure that he would know if anything serious had happened to her, and so he has to accept that she’s fine and she’s taking some time to herself. He’s sure that their paths will across again someday, and with Byleth’s encouragement, he decides to accept that and give her the space she needs.

Returning to teaching will be both easier and harder for him. It will remind him of those last few years at the academy, when Flayn was there, when she enrolled as a student, but it will give him children to look over, something that he has dearly missed. All in all, Seteth thinks this is necessary, to help him get the closure that he’s sure is long overdue.

~X~

The girl spends much of the time before her classes begin drifting between her dorm room and the library, taking care not to spend too much time where anyone will see her or try to talk to her. It isn’t that she’s antisocial, exactly, but she’s taking after her father a bit in terms of losing herself in research, and until she’s made it through the subject she’s looking into currently, she doesn’t want to be disturbed. Even more so because, once school starts, she knows that will cut into her time to research even more.

There is someone there that she’s going to have to meet, someone that her parents have told her about. They told her he will likely recognize her on sight, and that, once her identity is out, he likely won’t stop bugging her. More than anything, she wants to avoid this man until she can’t avoid him anymore.

It’s no wonder her appearance would be a dead giveaway. She takes after her mother so much in her build and facial structure, to the point that, at the age of fifteen, she and her mother could probably pass for sisters. Her hair is more similar in color to her father’s, but her eyes are entirely her mother’s.

She’s observed many times before that she really is like the perfect mix between both of her parents.

~X~

Seteth does not have the chance to meet all the students joining this year’s classes, but he does his best to get to know who he can before school starts. This year, he will be serving as a combat instructor as well as a spiritual advisor, and the three classes are not as he remembers them, with arbitrary names and symbols just to add the air of competition, but without any reason behind them, as the continent has been united for so long now.

His position is not nearly as lofty as it once was, and the school has changed a lot since then, but neither of these things bother him. In fact, they may have been necessary changes. He trusts in the decisions that have been made since the war ended, and is content with the world as it is right now.

Eventually, the first day of classes is upon them, and he plans to make an introduction in classes, so that anyone he did not have the chance to talk to knows who he is, what he does, and where to find him. It should be simple enough, and yet, in the very first class that he goes to talk to, he nearly forgets his own name when he first catches a glimpse of a sleepy-eyed, green-haired girl, who, were it not for the difference in hairstyle and a slightly darker tint of green, would be the spitting image of his long-lost daughter.

For a moment, it’s almost like looking into the past, and it’s hard to get back on track once he’s seen her. He manages to get through all the introductions, and even the girl’s last name gives nothing away, though he isn’t so sure that says anything. Though she doesn’t have the last name of the man he suspects of being her father, that man disappeared from his family around the same time Flayn ran off, renouncing his birthright without a second thought.

Obviously, the couple is living under an alias, and if that’s the case, then this girl not sharing in the Hevring name doesn’t mean anything. But Seteth can’t do anything about it right now, and bids the class farewell so that he can go into the next classroom, barely able to focus on anything as the day goes on. He wants to talk to her, to try and find out if his suspicions are correct, and to see if maybe, just maybe…

Even if she won’t talk to him, he would at least like some sort of confirmation that Flayn is alright. Even if she needs space, even if she needs that space forever, to be able to meet her child and  _ know _ would be more than enough for him.

~X~

The girl knows that her grandfather recognized her with one glance. He looked absolutely stricken for just a second there, and she wasn’t the only one to notice. While a few classmates sitting near her whisper about it when he’s gone, wondering what was on his mind before their professor calls for their attention, she keeps to herself, certain that she won’t be able to escape him now.

She knows that her family, her mother’s side of the family, has very special circumstances. Her mother and grandfather spent years in hiding, taking on new identities as a brother and sister, and her grandfather was always overprotective, ever the doting father but even more protective because of their special circumstances. Her mother lives in secrecy now, away from her own father both because of the necessity to keep up her disguise, and because she is enjoying the chance to finally live out her own life.

She doesn’t plan to keep him in the dark forever, but she has said before that they have to wait until the time is right, until she knows that she is safe and that her family will be safe, before they start bridging that gap. And her father, using his former noble connections, secures her a place at the monastery where her parents used to live, and where her grandfather will resume teaching.

This will likely serve as the first step in their family reconnecting, but the girl can only hope it isn’t too troublesome for her. She’s hardly enthusiastic about all the physical training she will have to do, and would have preferred studying independently at home- though the library here is absolutely astounding, so she can’t say she has too many regrets about that.

~X~

Seteth spots the girl on her way from the dining hall, and stops her. “Hello, I’m sorry to bother you,” he starts rather awkwardly, not sure how he’s supposed to talk to her, and even less sure what he’s supposed to do if he turns out to be completely wrong about her. “I was wondering if we could talk a little bit.”

“What did you need?” she asks, her face not giving anything away.

“I was wondering if we could talk about your Crest,” he says. “That is, if you have one, and forgive me for assuming, but I get this very familiar...feeling from you. I know that’s a rather strange thing to say, but it’s not something I can easily explain.”

And, looking him directly in the eyes, she says, “You didn’t have to ask, you could have just asked my professor for my records. It’ll say on there, plain as day, that I have the Crest of Cethleann. Now, if you’ll excuse me, it’s been a long first day, and I think I want to get to bed early tonight…”

With that, she walks away, and he knows. He knows from the way she speaks and the way she looks at him, everything about her, that she is who he thinks she is. On top of that, he’s sure that she knows who he is, to the point that she doesn’t even bother feigning confusion about why she would have felt familiar to him.

Just to confirm what she’s said, he does check her records. Just as she said, plain as day. The Major Crest of Cethleann.

His daughter’s Crest.

~X~

The letter was likely meant to arrive to him earlier than this, but with the influx of mail for new students, it gets delayed a little bit, and it’s a few days after he’s met her that he gets a letter addressed to him, clearly meant to be delivered on the first day of classes. He hasn’t had a chance to speak to her since then, but he doesn’t want to bring anything up to her that she doesn’t want to talk about, and doesn’t want to treat her differently than any of the other students, so he’s kept his distance.

He expects the letter to be from Byleth, who should be coming to visit soon, but the handwriting on the outside isn’t hers. Curious, he opens it, but he doesn’t have to read for long to understand what this is.

_ Seteth, _

_ I’m sure you’ve met her by now, so I can finally say this. Congratulations on the grandchildren. _

The letter is brief and without a signature, but Linhardt doesn’t have to sign his name for Seteth to know he sent it. Even after all these years, he would recognize Flayn’s handwriting, of course, and he knows by now who it is that she ran away with. The letter isn’t much, but it’s a sign that things might be changing soon, and it’s enough confirmation for now.

He notices, then, that it doesn’t say “grandchild”; the letter mentions “grandchildren.” Somehow, he will have to find a way to get more information on that, without signalling the girl out too much. Perhaps he could convince the teachers to have an assignment where the students talk about their family, their siblings, or would that be too juvenile?

He’ll figure it out eventually, or he will wait for Flayn to contact him directly, or he will wait until their other children begin their schooling. In the meantime, he decides to write to Byleth, and let her know the good news.

It’s not quite the closure he’s after, but it’s a step, and more than anything else, he’s happy with it.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in my writing updates, please follow my fanfiction twitter @WattStalf  



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